ORIENTAL CICADIDJE. 3 



Botofogo Bay, thought the "ceaseless shrill cry," when softened by distance, "not 

 unpleasant";* in the Himalayas, Mr. Middlemiss describes the "deafening roar" from the 

 rhododendron-trees, like the "whirr of large machinery; "t and Dr. Hildreth states that the 

 "countless multitude" of Tibiccn .scptemdeccin, Linn., filled woodlands and orchards with a 

 "continual singing or scream," from sunrise till evening, so loud that in a calm morning 

 "the sound was heard a full mile."]; Nor must we omit the testimony of Virgil, whose 

 utterances, once more made classic in the pages of Kirby and Spence, describe the Italian 

 species "as bursting the very shrubs with their noise "§ — " Et cantu querul^ rumpent arbusta 

 cicadfe" (Georg. iii. 328). || 



As regards the classification of the Cicadidre, we are, as in many other groups of Rhynchota, 

 much indebted to the work of the late Dr. Stal,1[ and there can be little doubt that his proposed 

 classification, according to our present knowledge, is a sound one, and is and will be generally 

 followed, if not entirely adopted by most students of the family. In fact, without the 

 " Illative Sense," as propounded by Cardinal Newman, it is difficult to frame a very different one, 

 and with some modifications, and supplemental proposals, it is adopted here. 



It appears that two divisions or subfamilies can be well differentiated : — 



Male. Tympinia entirely or in (jreat part corered hi/ the dilated or expanded lateral arena of 



the basal ahdominal segment.** ------- Cicadin^. f-Y 



Male. Tympana entirely or in greater part uneovered. ----- Tibicenin^,^. ''>' 



Subfam. CICADIN^. 



In this subfamily I include thirteen genera, and from these I have been obliged to 

 eliminate many species hitherto thus generically treated, and to incorporate some which seem 

 to have been unnecessarily divorced. The following synopsis will, however, best explain the 

 generic views here followed. In the differentiation of the species, good structural characters 

 can generally be found. These, as a rule, exist in the length and shape of the opercula, 

 and where they are unduly developed the greatest specific distinction occurs, as is the case with 

 other organisms, as pointed out by Darwin. ft These specific differentiations in opercula 

 reach their maximum in the genera Dunduhia and Cosinopsaltria, and the structure of the face, 

 or in some cases the length of the rostrum, are also important factors in the discrimination of 

 the species. Colour differences alone, without coincident structural departure, are treated as 

 varietal and not specific diflerences. 



Before proceeding further, it will probably be well to explain the nomenclature here used 

 to represent the different anatomical divisions and other specialized forms of structure which 

 are principally used in the diagnosis of genera and species ; in other words, that portion 



* 'Voyage of the Beagle,' 10th edit. p. 'iU. + ' Nature,' vol. xxxiii. p. 583 (1886). 



{ Sillim. Amer. Journ. 1830, p. 48. § Ivirby & Spence, ' Introd. to Entomol." 7th ed. p. 500. 



!] Libanius, in his funeral oration upon the Emperor Julian, with the lofty rhetoric used on tiiose occasions, exclaimed, 

 " Whenever a cessatiun of business occurred, after breakfastin;:; just sutficient to support life, he was not beaten by the cigale, 

 but throwing himself upon piles of books, he sung away." — ' Julian the Emperor,' King's trauslat. p. 17G. 



*\ Hem. Afr. vol. iv. p. 1 (1866). ** See fig. 1, on, p. 4. 



ft .\b in the opercular valves of sessile Cirripedes (rock barnacles), but these not only show specific distinction, 

 sometimes " wholly unlike in shape," but vary in the individuals of the same species (' Origin of Species,' 6th edit. p. 120). 



